Spiritual Bypass

Started by woodsgnome, September 28, 2015, 09:28:24 PM

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woodsgnome

Spiritual bypass refers to the psychological detours many people take, avoiding what they really need in the name of so-called spirituality.

It isn't meant to be anti-religious at all, though it may appear that way to some. It merely seeks to describe the perils and pitfalls of relying on a strictly religious/spiritual approach when deeper healing is called for. This is especially relevant for people dealing with the sort of deep psychological wounds stemming from conditions such as cptsd. 

Three excellent discussions regarding spiritual bypass can be found via the following links:

http://lonerwolf.com/what-is-spiritual-bypassing/

http://robertmasters.com/writings/spiritual-bypassing/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/emotional-sobriety/201110/beware-spiritual-bypass




I like vanilla

Thank you woodsgnome for the insightful articles. They have been helpful to me in processing a recent loss of friendship due to the former friend's spiritual bypassing.

I had started with a new T who practises a somatically-base form of therapy that is centred on feeling what is going on inside your body and your emotions. Through spiritual bypassing my friend, of course, was teaching herself to deny any form of 'bad' emotion, and, in her case, to get into moral relativism. I think my feeling my feelings and making progress with the new T was very threatening to my friend, and the state of denial she was in.

My friend began telling me that I was wrong to feel feelings such as anger, sadness, frustration, and fear (ones that I had been working diligently with my T to learn to feel), that I needed to become 'deeper' and 'transcend' such emotions. This person also tried to encourage me to stay in and in fact increase a 'relationship' with a casual acquaintance who is very abusive to people around her. Apparently the acquaintance is not abusive, I was only 'choosing' to feel angry and upset about the abuse that the acquaintance had thrown my way - we are all 'one with the universe' and cannot truly be harmful to one another (so says my friend). Apparently, it was also my 'spiritual duty' to 'vibrate' at a 'higher level in order to bring this abusive person up to a higher plain of reality so she could stop behaving in her abusive (but also somehow not abusive) ways'.  :stars:

My friend took exception to the fact that I disagreed with the idea that thinking happy thoughts about unicorns, rainbows, and lollipops would somehow cure my CPTSD (the friend knows about my CPTSD). My friend stopped speaking to me altogether when I told that if the path to 'spiritual enlightenment' truly was through denying my feelings (and so stopping my healing process and progress) and allowing other to abuse me, as she claimed, then I had no interest in being 'enlightened'.  :sadno:

It saddens me to have lost a friend. This individual is not a bad person, just a wounded and scared person. But, when I had to (and have to) choose between my Self and a friendship, then my Self wins. I am proud to finally be at the stage of my healing. :yes:

Ironically, I do follow a spiritual path myself. I rejected the religion that I was born into (and which my parents used as an almost literal 'god given' weapon against me). So, I have done lots of reading in various spiritual and religious traditions. I have also sat down and really decided what my values and beliefs are a forged something for myself that works for me. But, rather than using spirituality as a bypass, I use mine as a source of strength and as a way of connecting with myself, the world, and with good people around me (e.g. rather than meditating to 'transcend' my feelings, I use my spirituality as a source of strength to help me feel and process my emotions). I also never try and push my beliefs onto anyone else.

tired

There have been times in my life when I've tried to be "religious" to bond with my parents.  Basically, the friction between us is due to their feeling like I'm bad, in a religious sense, according to their beliefs.  I'm trying to be good.  In addition I've also looked for ways to be bonded to some group, like a church. Or ways to comfort myself besides food, and so many people seem to use religion for that and they feel good, using religious rituals to take comfort in something routine and familiar.  What do I have that's ritualized and familiar and cozy?  Binge eating, and playing with a kitten, that's all.

I would say I'm "spiritual" which to me merely means I recognize that "I" am not the sum total of things that go on in my mind. My mind is a dark and stormy place created largely by my parents and I'm beyond that, somehow. I have to be more than that.

Dutch Uncle

#3
Excellent articles , woodsgnome. I enjoyed reading them, they resonate deeply in me.
I don't think of myself as spiritual. I've had to much abuse of my 'spiritual' mother. And the articles point out exactly why.
Quote from: Robert Augustus MastersSpiritual bypassing is largely occupied, at least in its New Age forms, by the idea of wholeness and the innate unity of Being—"Oneness" being perhaps its favorite bumper sticker—but actually generates and reinforces fragmentation by separating out from and rejecting what is painful, distressed, and unhealed; all the far-from-flattering aspects of being human. By consistently keeping these in the dark, "down below" (when we're locked into our headquarters, our body and feelings seem to be below us), they tend to behave badly when let out, much like animals that have spent too long in cages. Our neglect here of these aspects of ourselves, however gently framed, is akin to that of otherwise caring parents who leave their children without sufficient food, clothing, or care.
I rather think of myself as 'down to earth'. That suits me well.


Small joke:
(Highlight to read in order not to threadjack here)
"Something to offend everyone" dept: Religious Sh!t
Taoism: 
Sh!t happens.

Buddhism: 
If sh!t happens, it's not really sh!t.

Islam: 
If sh!t happens, it's the will of Allah.

Protestantism: 
Sh!t happens because you don't work hard enough.

Judaism: 
Why does this sh!t always happen to us?

Hinduism: 
This sh!t happened before.

Catholicism: 
Sh!t happens because you're bad.

Hare Krishna: 
Sh!t happens rama rama.

T.V. Evangelism: 
Send more sh!t.

Atheism: 
No sh!t.

Jehova's Witness: 
Knock knock, sh!t happens.

Hedonism
: There's nothing like a good sh!t happening.

Christian Science: 
Sh!t happens in your mind.

Agnosticism
: Maybe sh!t happens, maybe it doesn't.


Rastafarianism: 
Let's smoke this sh!t.

Existentialism
: What is sh!t anyway?

Stoicism: 
This sh!t doesn't bother me.

Added by me:
Spiritualism: This sh!t makes sense.